The Blog of Sue Brooks, Hervey Bay – Fraser Coast

As I wandered along our bit of beach the other morning walking our small pack of foster dogs… I couldn’t help feel nothing but gratitude that I live here. When I think about all the other places I could live throughout this wide brown land, and even further away over the ocean, I keep returning to the wonderful relaxed feeling of being ‘home’. So why has this patch of earth called the Fraser Coast become my home?

I was born over the sea in a far away land. My parents chose to come to this young country only to give us their children, a better life. What a sacrifice they made leaving everyone and everything they loved behind! But thank goodness they came.

I have travelled far and I have travelled wide but nowhere else calls to me like here does. We enjoy a wonderful climate even with our fair share of droughts and flooding rains mixed in. We can live mostly outdoors close to the natural world and I have a deep need to be able to do just that. We all share a love for our peaceful patch of paradise and that is something that unites us and makes us all proud Fraser Coast Aussies.

When we walk along the beach or stroll down to the shops we mostly do the right thing and pick up the litter we see. We say gday to everyone we meet and greet every morning with a cheery smile. We know who our neighbours are and we help them out whenever we can. No ‘big smoke’ rush and no big city traffic jams and no big city unfriendly rush and hurry for us..

We are Australians of the Fraser Coast. We laugh at ourselves and we have a bit of a whinge now and then. We reckon we are better than the Yanks, the Poms, the Kiwi’s and almost everyone else from everywhere else. We are irreverent and we know how to take the Micky out of almost everything and everyone especially our mates. We are not very politically correct even though many folks would like to make us so. We say it like it is and we don’t beat around the bush.

We are Ozzies. We laugh together, we cry together and we bloody well stick together when the going gets tough. On this our Aussie Day, we celebrate all that is special about this great wide brown land and the people who live upon it. We are all truly privileged to live in The Lucky Country! Lets try to remember each and every day just how truly lucky we really are!

Sue that comes directly from the heart, well said. Yes, it is a beautiful part of Australia, possibly the best. Everyone who lives here should take a trip to “The Big Smoke” every once in a while, just to be reminded of how lucky we are to live here. If you are walking down the street or even in a shopping centre in Sydney, don’t smile, you will be greeted with suspicion and or/abuse; here you are greeted with a returned smile or a cheery welcome. Well done Fraser Coast.

We may have to pick up a bit of rubbish on the Esplanade occassionaly, but at least we don’t have to trawl through rubbish to find the evening meal like in Cambodia.

We put our hands in the air to wave as a greeting, not in fear of being shot by machine gun weilding drug police in Mexico.

We can go for a walk, in fresh air, without fear of a parked car expoloding outside a church or shop, like those in Nigeria.

If we are cold, we can walk into one of the many charities, and grab a blanket, If we are sick we can walk into a hospital and get care…

I could go on, but at the end of the day, we do like in a lucky country, and if a little more rubbish on the beach every January 27 is the consequence of celebrating who we are is all we have to whinge about, I think I can deal with that .

I don’t agree at all. There is an element of people in every group and/or society that are lazier and less inclined to do the right thing than the majority are. In our region by far the majority of people live peacefully and cleanly and do not make life difficult for their neighbours. But for those that do the wrong thing our system possibly deals with them too lightly and/or makes excuses for their bad behaviour. On Australia Day most people celebrate responsibly. Those that don’t spoil it for the majority of us sometimes but hey we roll up our sleeves and clean up after them… I don’t want to live in a world where rules are created to suit any minority group unless the issue at stake is oe of equality…I had a wonderful Australia Day at 4 separate places with only one example of bad behaviou late in the day at Scarness. More cops would ave solved that situation easily also…

That is our whole problem, “I don’t want to live in a world where rules are created to suit any minority group”, so you all turn a blind eye to what is going on and hope it gets better! Come on, society is going slowly down the drain, but we all want to be nice.

There will come a time when the “element of people in every group and/or society” outnumbers those that “do the right thing”,
sadly then it will be too late.

Sorry people, but it is only going to get worse and deep down inside you all know who is at fault.